Donald Trump’s year in charts
After one year of his presidency, the FT's markets team explains which of the initial markets concerns have materialised and which have not.
Produced by Alessia Giustiniano. Graphics by Russell Birkett.
Transcript
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A year has passed since Donald Trump shocked the world by winning 2016's US presidential election. The immediate belief was that a Trump presidency was a game changer for the world economy and capital markets, and many feared it would be negative. As investors scrambled to factor in the result, US stocks rallied while emerging markets tumbled.
This initial reaction tracked Mr Trump's "America First" rhetoric lifting Wall Street stocks and developed world indices. It came with a sense that the protectionist flavour to the new administration's policies left emerging markets exposed. But robust economic growth in China and the eurozone has assuaged such concerns. And so the US has been outperformed by the rest of the world, led by emerging markets even as New York's S&P 500 has set a series of record highs.
US stock's underperformance was largely driven by the dollar. It strengthened after the election, but then began a significant weakening in large part due to surprisingly strong European growth, which boosted the euro. Perhaps ironically, Russia's rouble has gained the most of any major currency against the dollar since the election. Turkey's lira has been by far the weakest. Greater attention was turned to Mexico, which is uniquely exposed to the US economy and stood to be harmed by Mr Trump's policies on migration and trade. After an initial collapse, the peso put on a strong recovery, but it has wobbled again on the concern that the Nafta Trade Accord could be endangered after all.
On the president's signature issues, the market is sending mixed signals. On tax, many banks now track the performance of stocks which pay the highest effective tax rate and should logically benefit the most from a tax cut. This chart uses Goldman Sachs data and makes clear that such stocks are lagging. The market remains unconvinced that significant tax cuts are coming.
On the issue of Mexican immigration, there is evidence that Mr Trump's rhetoric is already changing behaviour. Arrests at the border have fallen very sharply, although they have started to rise a little in recent months. This implies that far fewer people are attempting to enter the US from the south. Meanwhile, remittances to Mexico rose sharply. In the past, this has been driven by Mexican migrant workers' fear that they would lose their jobs and implies that many may be planning to leave.
As for the highly controversial Trump positions on coal and climate change, coal stocks have risen since the election, although still not by as much as the wider market. Meanwhile, the decision to withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Accord has not stopped clean energy stocks from rising much faster.
